My arty, crafty, housey, mumsy blog

And here’s something we prepared earlier..

Another job we got done at the end of last year was a bit of work on our patio area. When we moved in there were two kidney-shaped garden beds at either end of the patio – while the greenery was a nice addition it did reduce the actual usable area on our patio by half. One of the top jobs I wanted to do before Christmas was to make our patio more usable. The odd shape of the garden meant we had to get a bit creative with our options. We were pondering mosaicing or concreting the garden beds but in the end decided on an easier and less permanent option (in case we stuffed it up). After much deliberation and with Christmas rapidly approaching, we decided to go with pavers and loose pebbles.

We dug out the plants and rehomed as many as possible, then removed about 5 inches of soil from the gardens. We put down a base of coarse sand and levelled it as much as possible and then added four large hexagonal concrete pavers in each bed. They are pebbled to match the existing patio concrete. Around the tiles we put a mix of Tuscan pebbles (budget pebbles with a layer of more expensive pebbles and some smaller ones to fill in the gaps).

The hardest part was laying the pavers – they were so heavy, and getting them in place and level was so hard! There was no way I could have done it on my own, definitely needed the muscle (aka husband) on this one. In the end we were happy with the result and now we have a functional, more usable patio space. Two months on and it’s holding up well the rigours of two kids and three chooks.

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Welcome to my blog! I'm an Aussie mum of two, married and we've finally found a home of our own. Join us as we embark on the joys of mortgage owning, home decorating, gardening and attempting to live frugally (with a healthy side order of decluttering!).